Sounders FC coach Sigi Schmid quotes from Friday

Here’s the transcript of coach Sigi Schmid’s chat with the media after Friday’s training session at Starfire…

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(Any scouting report on Chicago?) “I think they’ve made a couple of good changes in their team. The two Uruguayan forwards up front play with a lot of energy and pace. They’ve played together before so they have a good understanding of each other. They play as a pair, which is important. Pappa is a quality player; he’s been in this league for a while now. He’s stepping into that next realm, sort of like what Zakuani is for us. He’s stepping up for them also. Not quite sure who they’re going to play in the back. Anibaba was a good pickup for them. Gibbs has been a good pickup as well. I know they got some injuries there so we’re not quite sure if they’re going to come in a 3-5-2 or a 4-4-2 but we’re prepared for both.”

(Any miraculous healing with Fredy Montero?) “No. I don’t see Fredy playing tomorrow.”

(On Sunday’s Reserve League game being postponed…) “It was something that was on the schedule, but we had an issue with flights. We asked for a certain thing — if we could push it back time-wise — and they said they were unable to, so we were unable to play it. Then they put it back on the schedule and said we can push it back now, but by that time, when we tried to reincarnate the flights, it didn’t work. For us, we’re going to look to do something else on Sunday. We’ll see if we can get the guys who are in the reserves right now and not playing that much, we’ll see if we can get some people out here and at least play an intersquad (game) or do something where they can play big, like 9v9 — something like that to stay in a rhythm of games as well.”

(How’d the week of practice go?) “The week of practice was good. I think we got accomplished what we wanted to accomplish. We worked on our shaping. We worked on our defending a bit. We continue to work on our finishing all the time. I’m happy with the mood of the team. It was good. I thought they played and performed with a lot of energy. We want to transfer that energy onto the field tomorrow.”

(On Toronto FC trying to keep media out of the locker room, something the league has come down against…) “It’s the way it is everywhere else in the world. It’s just in the United States, because (with) the other sports that we have, that’s just not the way it is. I’ve been fortunate enough to have coached a little bit internationally with the U.S., and when you go to any international games or anything like that, that’s the way it is. The locker room is a sacred area. It’s closed off. You go to the mixed zone and guys don’t have to worry about being interrupted in their showers. Guys usually do a good job of getting out there pretty quickly and making sure they talk to the media. But we have to deal with the way we want to do it and the way our rules are. Obviously Toronto is part of our league so it’s something Aron Winter has to adjust to because it’s different than what he’s used to in his country.”